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February
2007
SPECIAL REPORT:Fryer Makers Move ForwardBy: Mike Sherer

Once your
fry battery’s installed, you probably don’t give it much
thought, so long as your units deliver the fried goods when
you need them without too many hiccups, breakdowns or
filtration issues.

But back at
the factory where your fryers were made, there’s a lot of
attention focused on equipment these. Perhaps more attention
than ever, and with good reason. While fryers of the past
were busy not being the stars of the kitchen, they were also
busy sucking up energy like crazy.

That’s
slowly changed. Until The NAFEM Show in 2005, the most
exciting development in gas frying had been the
qualification of several models under the Energy Star
program. Since that show, though, a half-dozen new units
have come out that offer you greater efficiency than ever
before. And now manufacturers are reaching even further to
develop new products, for two key reasons: energy and oil.

A Look Back

For a long
time fryers were simply a commodity. Every so often a
manufacturer would introduce some new technology—remember
the first tube-type fryers?—and leap ahead until others
copied it. It wasn’t until PG&E’s Food Service Technology
Center in San Ramon, Calif., developed an ASTM test method
for fryers that manufacturers really had a way to
differentiate their performance. Even then, not many took
advantage of the testing until the Environmental Protection
Agency set Energy Star criteria for fryers in August 2003.

Fast forward
to 2006, a year when operators and manufacturers alike were
demanding energy efficiency like never before, and the
<I>trans<I> in trans fat became anathema to legislators.
Both energy costs and oil issues have sent equipment
engineers back to drawing boards to tweak existing
technologies and ramp up new ideas in the quest for a better
fryer. Several new models are on the market now, and the
next 12 to 18 months promise more.

Frying Factors

Manufacturers are taking several approaches to the issues
you face. One reason, of course, is that frying isn’t as
simple as dropping food in a vat of hot oil. Type of fryer,
type of oil, volume, the food you’re cooking, how frequently
you filter and change your oil, cooking temperatures and
procedures all have an effect on the energy efficiency and
productivity of your fryers.

A fryer
obviously uses oil as the cooking medium instead of steam,
water, air or infrared radiation, and food products absorb
some oil during the cooking process. The faster food cooks,
the less oil it will absorb. And the cleaner the oil is, the
longer it will last and the less likely food will absorb an
off taste or odor. That means you want a fryer to stay at as
constant a temperature as possible.

The more
efficient the fryer, in other words, the faster product will
cook, the less oil will be lost to the food, and the cleaner
the oil is likely to remain between filtering cycles.

In general,
manufacturers are zeroing in on one or a combination of
these three areas to improve fryer performance: energy
efficiency, oil consumption and equipment controls. R&D is
making a contribution to each.

Some time
ago, engineers came up with a couple of advances in burner
technology. One was the infrared burner, which transfers
heat to the pot through ceramic, and now metal, plates that
radiate heat more evenly than an open flame. The shift for
some manufacturers resulted in perhaps a 5% gain in
efficiency.

Another
advance was the so-called “turbo” or fan-assisted burners
that pre-mix air and gas before forcing them into the
burner. The air-gas mixture burns more efficiently, and in
addition to the heat transfer from the burner, the
superheated air is circulated through the combustion chamber
before exiting up the flue.

Frymaster,
for example, has done ongoing tweaking of this technology to
attain ever higher efficiency gains. The H55 open-pot fryer
the company introduced in late 2005 offers a 55% efficiency
rate, according to FSTC test data.

Aga’s
Infinity fryers also use this type of fan-assisted burner
technology. In addition to the burners and heat exchanger
under the flat-bottom pot, the fryer is designed with a flue
wrapped around the sides of the pot, which transfers even
more of the heat into the oil. Infinity’s fryer operates at
about 57% efficiency, says the FSTC.

Meanwhile,
Pitco Frialator is eking out efficiency gains from an
“old-fashioned” atmospheric burner. The advantage, the
company says, is fewer moving parts (no blower) and a
simpler, more reliable system. There are several keys to the
55% efficiency rating on the company’s Solstice Supreme
Series. First, the burners are baffled and closely coupled
to the heat exchanger to let in lots of pre-heated primary
air but restrict secondary air. The unit, in fact, has a
draft protection device that shuts the fryer down if the
sensor detects an imbalance in makeup air under the hood,
for example.

The fryer’s
“matchless” ignition uses an electronic spark to light a
pilot when the unit is first turned on, so no further spark
is needed to fire the burners when the fryer’s heating or
recovering. And finally, the burners clean themselves. With
the push of a button at the start of the day, a valve
releases gas across the mesh surface of the burner instead
of through the Venturi valve and fires it, burning off any
debris or carbon buildup from the previous day.

Future
efficiency gains may come from an existing technology that
until recently was considered too expensive. Pulse
combustion burners, developed and patented by the Gas
Research Institute (now the Gas Technology Institute), burn
gas in spurts instead of a continuous flow, as the name
suggests. With gas prices rising, advances could bring the
cost of pulse combustion burners down to the point of
offering attractive energy savings.

Heat Transfer Improves

Another area
where manufacturers have made efficiency strides is in
transferring heat from the burners to the pot and into the
oil. In many cases, ceramic heat exchangers, which are
costly and fragile, have given way to metal mesh exchangers.
Not only do these do as good a job or better of transferring
heat, the new high-temperature metal alloys are extending
the life and reliability of the exchangers and the fryers
themselves.

Alto-Shaam,
for example, says the design of the rectangular, baffled
heat exchanger in its new ASF-75G fryer is one of the
reasons the unit blew the doors off the previous efficiency
champ in ASTM testing. The Alto-Shaam unit is 71%, according
to the folks at the FSTC, compared to the previous record
holder’s 64%.

The key, of
course, lies in increasing the surface area of the heat
exchanger. Alto-Shaam says the design of its exchanger
nearly doubles the surface area compared to older designs.
In addition, the company designed nipples into the bottom of
the fry pot, again to increase the amount of metal
transferring heat into the oil.

Pot design
is another way engineers are squeezing out more efficiency.
The three primary types of pots—open, tube-type and flat
bottom—all have advantages, depending on your application.
Open-pot fryer design has been tweaked more than the others
as engineers play with the depth of the cold zone where
sediment can settle. If the cold zone allows oil to cool too
much as it circulates in the pot, the unit takes longer to
recover. Too warm, and sediment will carbonize.

Now, when
you consider flat-bottom fryers, you should remember that
this design offers no cold zone, and thus nowhere for debris
to settle except on the hot bottom of the pot, where it can
carbonize, or on the food being cooked. This makes
flat-bottom units less advantageous for foods with a lot of
breading.

But the big
advantage of this type of design is that it uses far less
oil to cook the same volume of food. Sometimes called
“low-volume oil” or LOV fryers, flat-bottom units like the
Anetsberger FB and the Infinity can use about a third less
oil in the pot. And makers say they’re easier to clean than
open-pot or tube-type fryers.

Taking A Look At Oil

Many of you
know that oil costs, already a concern for anyone who does a
lot of frying, may go up 20% or more in the next year. The
trans fat issue, bubbling at the edges of consumer and
legislator consciousness for more than a decade, has finally
come to a head with the New York City ban. A lot of you saw
it coming and have been experimenting with alternatives for
years.

Unfortunately, the new trans-fat-free oils are more
expensive and in short supply. Plus, one of the reasons
edible oils were hydrogenated in the first place was to
extend their shelf life. Hydrogenation makes oil less
susceptible to heat degradation and oxidation, oil’s two
biggest enemies. And for this reason, you’re likely to see
more suppliers introduce more low-consumption LOV machines
in the future.

Extending
oil life is another area of focus for many fryer makers.
Filtration is where most of the technological changes have
taken place. Today you can find numerous fryer models that
include built-in filtration systems. In some cases it’s as
easy as opening a drain cock and pushing a button.

Gone, too,
in many cases, are the old paper filters and/or powder once
required to filter oil. Today’s systems use metal mesh
filters, usually in two stages, to screen out debris and
crumbs. Filter pumps and seals have been improved, too. Some
systems can filter a fryer’s oil in less than three minutes.

Vulcan-Hart
in particular will bring an upgraded filtration system to
market this year. The company’s Kleen Screen Plus has been
redesigned to allow you to filter via mesh screen or a
non-paper fabric envelope. Vulcan says the envelope is FDA
approved and tear proof, meaning it can withstand most
scraping implements without being damaged. The company also
reports that envelope testing by the University of Georgia
showed no microbiological growth with continued use of up to
three weeks.

Continuous
filtration systems, first developed in the 1980s but
abandoned due to pump and seal issues, now are getting a
second look. Improved technology could make cost-effective
systems available within the next few years. The advantage,
in addition to keeping oil clean and free of debris that can
carbonize and degrade it, may be another small bump in
efficiency.

You’re In Control

The third
approach manufacturers are taking to fryer improvements is
in the controls themselves. Fry station management is
critical to maintaining oil life and getting the most
productivity out of your fryer. Training employees on the
right procedures—proper breading, loading, skimming,
cleaning, and filtering—is just one step.

While you
still have to make sure employees don’t make mistakes like
shaking salt on food over a fryer, manufacturers are finding
ways to take as many decisions out of the hands of employees
as possible.

Electronic
controls have helped make fryers more efficient by
automating cook times and tightening temperature ranges in
which they operate. Programmable features let you
predetermine cooking temperature, cook time, hold time and
basket lifts, eliminating guesswork and improving
consistency.

Solid-state
thermostats can help you adjust cook times based on both
initial product temperature and efficiency of the fryer
itself. In many cases, they’re also more sensitive, enabling
fryers to recover faster and maintain temperature more
easily. Smaller fluctuations in temperature also mean
greater efficiency, higher productivity and more savings in
energy and oil.

In addition
to pre-heat and melt cycles, many models now have an
automatic energy saving mode that puts the fryer into idle
after a certain period of inactivity. This lowers the fryer
temperature to around 250º F instead of 350º to 400º F,
saving energy and extending oil life.

The latest
advance in controls is making them compliant with the NAFEM
Data Protocol. Anetsberger, for example, was the first fryer
maker to complete the NDP certification process. More than
half a dozen of the company’s fryer models now have NDP data
connections, which allow them to communicate with a PC. This
means you can program fryers from a centrally located
computer to adjust for new menu items in your stores. You
also can monitor the performance of all your fryers,
including data such as Btu usage, temperature and cook
cycles, so you can make adjustments to get greater
efficiency or simply single out underperforming fryers for
maintenance or service calls.

A Hot Future

Energy
Star’s commercial fryer criteria caused a lot of the recent
development in the fryer market. And now that a number of
fryer makers have tweaked their equipment to qualify for the
Energy Star label, count on another flurry of development as
manufacturers try to leapfrog the pack and differentiate
themselves even further.

Activity we
know of right now includes Anetsberger launching a second
generation of its NDP-enabled fryers in December, units with
new features like a shortening lock-out that shuts off the
fryer if the oil needs filtering. The new fryers also are
RoHS compliant for use in the European Union, and soon in
Japan and China, when their regs take effect.

Building on
the high-efficiency Solstice Supreme platform, Pitco says it
will have yet another new fryer improvement at the National
Restaurant Association Show this May.

And
Frymaster says before the year’s out it will be known for
new filtration improvements.

If the past
year is any indication, you’ll continue to see exciting
innovations in gas fryers in the near future. But if you’re
in the market now, you don’t have to wait around. Today’s
high-efficiency gas fryers are better than anything you’ve
seen yet. Turn to the next page for a run-down on recently
introduced high-production and high-efficiency models.

And if
you’re looking for a comprehensive list of all makers of gas
frying equipment, visit the Buyers Guide at our Web site,
www.fermag.com.